


Get some

by varevare (varebanos)



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Casino AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varebanos/pseuds/varevare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new kid was good at cards -almost too good. And it's just Dick's duty, as the son of the owner of the Bat, to discover what's up with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Here, that’s him.”

Dick squinted at the small screen -Barbara might be used to them, but Dick kept thinking that they could afford better ones- and for a moment wasn’t able to see anything. The screen showed exactly what all the others screens did at that moment: the main room of the casino, where the best of Gotham’s city population would go their money away in the tables and machines. The bright lights and the reflections from the mirrors, mixed with the dresses from most ladies gave everything a shiny aspect, and Dick couldn’t understand how people could stay there for hours without getting a headache.

It was a scene Dick had watched millions of times, and even without speakers in the room, he didn’t need them: his mind could provide the excited voices of the people playing, mixed with all the background noises. Everybody seemed completely happy to be there, even the ones who were ruining themselves, so Dick just stared harder, trying to find the reason he was down here in the camera room.

As it was, however, he couldn’t see anything out of place. Barbara, probably noticing his confusion, sighed and wheeled a bit closer, pointing at a young man -practically a kid- in a suit sitting at one of the poker tables. It wasn’t easy to be sure looking at such a small image, but Dick knew he had never seen him before.

“That kid? What’s the problem with him?” Dick snorted. “Is he underage? Cass can kick him out, I still don’t know why did you call me here Babs…”

Barbara huffed, exasperated, and covered Dick’s mouth with his hand to get him to shut up.

“He turned 21 a couple of weeks ago, we already checked that. His age is not the problem. Look at the table again.”

Dick made a show of rolling his eyes, not really knowing if Barbara would notice in the dimly lighted room, but he looked at the screen again. Just in time to see the boy smiling openly and pushing the chips in the middle of the table while another man threw his cards to the floor and stormed off.

“Well, that’s a lot of chips. Good for him.” Dick shrugged and glanced at Barbara. “He’s not getting in any trouble, what is all this about?”

“That’s way too many chips, Dick.” Barbara’s voice was cold as steel as she opened a graph with statistics in the main screen. “He’s been winning non stop ever since he arrived alone last week.”

Dick read the screen, making thoughtful faces as if he understood the statistics. Given the look that Barbara was giving him, he wasn’t fooling her in the slightest.

“So he’s cheating, then.” Dick straightened his back, ready to leave. “What about it? He’s not the first one, send Cass to kick him out, that’s what cheaters here get! What does this have to do with me?”

“It’s not that easy, Dick.” With a couple more of clicks, Barbara brought the boy’s passport to the screen. “Name’s Timothy Jackson Drake, his parents dropped him here at the hotel and left for their fifth or sixth honeymoon to some cruise thing. They didn’t even left contact info.” Barbara glared at the screen and then at Dick. “You know the Drakes, I suppose.”

“Of course I do.”

Dick had been in enough parties as Bruce Wayne’s ward to have met all the socialites from Gotham and beyond. Specially the ladies, who had passed with the years from pinching his cheeks to pinching his butt. Janet Drake had never done any of that, so from Dick’s point of view she stood out -he couldn’t remember her husband for the life of him, though.

“And then you’ll understand that we can’t just kick his son out of the casino, specially since we don’t even know how is he cheating.” Barbara sighed. “For all we know, he just has the best luck ever with the cards. But personally my bet is on card counting.”

“I see.” Dick looked at the pic. The Drake’s son was young, clearly. Even if the passport was quite recent, if Dick hadn’t seen the birth date next to it he wouldn’t have thought him a day older than eighteen. Kind of cute, too: he didn’t look like the kind of person you’d expect to find in a casino. He wasn’t surprise Barbara was suspicious of him. “I still don’t know what does that have with me, though.”

“Well, Bruce wants you to get more involved in the business.”

“I am involved in the business already!” Dick lifted a hand to his chest dramatically. “You wound me, Babs. Does that mean that all those hours smiling at those evil old men and women meant nothing to any of you?”

Barbara changed windows again, now the screen showing the feed from the entrance hall, and turned to look at Dick, a not amused expression in her face.

“Well, we think that you can do more than smile and look pretty. Unless you think we are overestimating you…?”

“I was just kidding, Babs.” Dick smiled brightly at her. “Alright, I do it. What exactly do I have to do?”

“Well, use your pretty boy powers and go charm him. Learn what is he doing. Get us some proof so we can kick him out without damaging our reputation.”

“Sure thing. Just give me a couple of days and he’ll be ours.”

With another smile, Dick patted Babs shoulder and left, the metal door closing silently behind him. The bright eyes in the hall outside made him close his eyes, but without a pause he started walking towards the main hall. Bruce had given him a mission and he wasn’t going to mess up, and in any case this was a time as good as any other to introduce himself.


	2. Chapter 2

The Drakes had never lacked money, Dick knew that, and he knew Tim had probably never needed it in his life, but seeing the excitement in his eyes it was almost difficult to believe. It was weird that they had never met: the Drakes, even if they weren’t too sociable, were usually around the same circles than the Waynes. Dick would remember Tim’s face.

Jason was the croupier -of course he was, he always got the interesting games- and Cass was waiting at a short distance behind him. Dick didn’t trust Jason much, not really, but he had to admit that the man was skilled, and Cass was the best security guard one could have. Only the best at The Bat. There was a small circle of people around the table, and Dick joined, trying not to call attention to himself. Fortunately for him, everybody seemed more interested in the game, seeing as the only people left in the table were Tim and Mr Cobblepot and the stakes were high. Strange -Dick was pretty sure Bruce had banned him last month. Now Dick wasn’t sure if Cass was watching the table because of him or because of Tim.

As Tim won another thousand, two burly men went to stand behind him, and that was definitely the perfect moment for Dick to introduce himself. While the croupier shuffled, Dick ducked his head under one of the men’s arms and beamed at Tim.

“Hey darling.”

Tim jumped, not expecting Dick’s whisper on his ear -nor his hand in his lower back. Dick moved a bit closer, pushing one of the possibly thugs away and smiling wider when he noticed Tim’s blush. He hadn’t pushed Dick away, either.

In fact, the only person who seemed upset over Dick’s interruption was Cobblepot, and as soon as people turned their attention to Dick instead of the game, Cass approached him.

Dick would never get used to how intimidating 110 lbs could look.

“My name is not darling,” Tim said, lifting an eyebrow, but the color was still high in his cheeks. “Have we met before?”

“Maybe? Richard Grayson, but please, call me Dick.” Dick offered his hand -the one that wasn’t on Tim’s waist, that is- and shook Tim’s. “You are Tim Drake, right? You are cuter than in the photographs.”

Jason, who had ignored Dick until that moment, coughed something that sounded like “no filter”. What a jerk; Dick knew what he was doing thank you very much.

“What photographs?”

Dick cleared his throat to get some time. The kid was good. Tim’s eyes were big and blue, and he looked innocent enough to fool anyone at first.

“Oh, you know, tabloids.” Dick waved a hand away lightly and switched topics. “Say, Timmy, would you like to have a drink with me?”

Tim looked stunned and blushed harder, and for a second Dick thought that he was going to get it his way. But of course things couldn’t be that easy.

“Sorry, Mr Grayson, but I don’t accept drinks from strangers.” Tim looked away and started piling up his chips, smiling. “No matter how handsome they might be.”

Jason snorted loudly, and Dick glared at him, thinking about throwing him one of the chips. He finally decided against it, though: the people at the table, seeing that the game had ended and that nobody wanted to go against Tim’s lucky strike, started walking away, and Tim would leave soon too.

“I’m not a stranger, I just told you my name.”

“Maybe next time.” Tim stood up, straightening his suit -and it was a nice suit, Dick couldn’t stop noticing- and picked up his winnings. “Goodnight, Mr Grayson.”

With that, Tim walked away, leaving behind him a completely stunned Dick. Once he was far away enough not to listen to them, Jason walked up to him -the table was empty, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long- and put a hand on his shoulder, smirking.

“Sorry, Dickie, he’s not into you. Not everybody is.”

Dick huffed and elbowed him in the ribs.

“You just wait, Jason. He’ll be.” He had blushed, Dick had seen in, and he hadn’t pushed him away. And it’s not like Dick needed to have steamy makeout sessions with him, flirty was just his natural setting.

“Whatever you say.” Stroking his chest, Jason walked back to his place on the table. “But he’s shy, so you better change tactics.”

“He’s short, he’s cute and he’s going to be mine.”

Jason rolled his eyes and started shuffling cards again.

“Sometimes you’re a real creeper, I hope you know that.” Jason sighed. “He just rejected you.”

“He just said he didn’t want to drink with me. I need to make him think we are friends or something, getting him drunk would just be easier but it’s not necessary.” Dick didn’t pout. He was completely certain of his future success.

“Alright, good luck with that.”

-

“Tim, you are complete idiot,” Tim said.

Glaring at his reflection in the mirror, Tim saw his eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep. Completely different from Dick’s clean, gorgeous baby blue eyes. Groaning at the memory of the scene from a mere half hour ago, Tim covered his face with the towel as if to smother himself.

Why had he done that? Dick -THE Dick Grayson- had invited him to have drinks with him and he had said no! He was having the luckiest week in the world and of course he’d ruin it himself. His automatic response when panicking was to go away, but Tim had kind of hoped that it wouldn’t kick in when something like that would happen.

Who was he kidding? He hadn’t hoped that, because even if his wildest dreams he had never imagined something like that.

He needed to do something about it. Starting with a smile. Next time he saw Dick, he’d give him a bright smile like everybody in the world except Tim seemed able to do. He could practice now -Dick hadn’t seemed to mind the bloodshot eyes anyways. He could send pics to Kon and ask for his opinion; Tim’s friend had a real winner smile.

He really needed to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Tim stared at his drink, wondering why was there an olive floating in the slightly yellow, not really alcoholic drink. He had asked for it blindly, just because he had heard his mother ask for it before and it had sounded classy. It did actually look more ridiculous than classy. Who thought drinking olives was a good idea? Was he supposed to swallow it or was he allowed to chew?

This was probably not the way most people had their first drink after turning 21: alone in the bar of a terribly expensive casino. He could pay for everybody’s drinks just with what he had won at the tables earlier that afternoon, and he entertained the idea for a moment. He was way too shy to do that, though, and while he decided what to do with his drink he tried to pass time looking around. People in movies never had their glasses empty, right? Nothing wrong with not drinking right away.

Tim knew he hadn’t fooled the waitress -a cute blonde who shot pitying glances from time to time in his direction-, but there wasn’t anything Tim could do about it. Turning around, he faced the entrance, looking at the scattered tables and, beyond the glass doors, to the poker tables.

There was still some time left before night, so the bar was almost empty. The room was medium sized and less gaudy than the main area, with some comfortable looking sofas and a long bar with chairs, of which Tim was the sole occupant at the moment. After checking the people there -just two elderly couples on a vacation who were probably tired of all the light and noise already- Tim went back to staring at the door. He couldn’t deny he was disappointed with how the night was going, but that was just his fault. It was too early to drink. The fact that Tim, too, was tired of the light and noise just put him at the same level than the elderly. He didn’t want to go back to play cards or whatever he could think of, but if he didn’t it was going to be a long night.

His silent prayers for somebody interesting to arrive were answered when no other than Richard Grayson opened the door, practically irradiating light inside the room with his smile. Tim’s heart jumped to his throat and he turned around to face the bar, ducking his head and hoping he wouldn’t be noticed.

From the corner of his eye, Tim could see Dick’s elbow as he leaned on the bar and started chatting cheerfully with the waitress. Tim sipped on his drink, willing himself to calm down. After a minute, though, it became clear that either Dick hadn’t noticed him, or he had no intention of approaching Tim. If it was the first, Tim would never have the guts to go talk to him first, not after how he had acted. He had rejected him, acting like a self entitled jerk when the other man had barely introduced himself -and therefore, if Dick was upset with Tim and had decided to ignore him, well that was just Tim’s fault. It didn’t stop the disappointment from washing over him, leaving him feeling lonelier than before. He had wasted the best chance in the world to get to know Dick Grayson -the famous, charming, Tim’s childhood-idol Dick Grayson. If he had been a couple of years younger Tim might have cried.

At that moment, Dick was a bit too far away for Tim to be able to hear what he was saying over the soft music, no matter how much Tim strained his ear. The most he could do -without directly looking at him- was to stare at the vaguely human shaped reflections on the bottles on the shelves.

As vague as they were, they proved themselves to be more than enough distraction for Tim, because he didn’t notice somebody else had arrived at the room until he heard a deep voice next to him asking for a shot. The voice, really close, startled him, and without a second thought Tim turned around to find the barstool next to him taken.

The man was… impressive, to say at least. Tall, visibly muscled under a well tailored suit, and, while older than Tim (old enough for all his hair to have turned white) he was still definitely handsome.

He was also smirking at Tim -and Tim didn’t blush, definitely didn’t- as he downed his shot.

“What’s a pretty boy like you doing here all alone?”

What was with all those attractive people suddenly paying him attention?

“Nothing much, actually.” Smooth, Tim, smooth. At least he hadn’t sputtered.

The other man seemed to like his answer, though, because his smile got wider and he extended his hand.

“Good. Name’s Slade.”

Tim shook his hand gingerly, giving Slade a tentative smile.

“I’m Tim.”

“Nice to meet you, Tim.” Slade moved a couple of inches closer, and shoot Tim another incredibly white smile. “Are you even old enough to be in this casino, Tim?”

“I turned 21 last week so, yes, definitely old enough.”

“Hey, no need to get upset,” Slade replied, lifting his hands in a placating gesture. “You are so pretty you look like jailbait, can’t blame a guy for being careful.” He leaned in until he was practically whispering on Tim’s ear. “Say, since you got nothing to do, would you like to go back to the hotel? I have a nice suite, but it’s way too empty-“

Tim knew his face looked like a tomato, and he was unable to reply -or even breathe- for a moment. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.

“Slade, how did you get here? I thought we had already put you in the black list.”

Slade leaned away from Tim before turning around, and Tim did the same to find once again Dick standing behind him, looking angrier than Tim had thought possible.

“Oh, did you?”

“You better leave before I call security.”

“As pushy as always, I see. No need to get upset, I was already leaving.” Slade’s smile didn’t falter when he turned looked at Tim. “I’m afraid we will have to continue our conversation some other time, Tim. Good night.”

Slade stood up and left, and almost immediately Dick took his place next to Tim. Now that he was up close, Tim realized he was probably on a break. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, and the sweat on his forehead shined under the bar lights. After the fiasco that was their last talk, Tim had wished to be more calm the next time he spoke to Dick, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen. Not that they were talking; Dick was texting someone without even sparing a glance at Tim, and Tim was still staring at his throat. Which was possibly creepy and he should probably stop doing, but can you blame him.

Suddenly, Dick pocketed his phone and smiled at Tim, looking as charming as usual. So charming, Tim could only guess Dick hadn’t seen him before and didn’t mean to ignore him. Holding onto that, he ventured a smile of his own.

“I’m glad to see you again, Tim. Enjoying your time here?” Before Tim could reply, Dick lifted a hand. “I should say sorry first of all. I was too abrupt the other night, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable-“

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Tim interrupted him, hoping he wasn’t blushing as much as he thought. “I wasn’t precisely great, either.”

Tim waved a hand weakly, obtaining an amused chuckle in response.

“You were right, though: I barely introduced myself.” He called the bartender, sliding closer to Tim to do so, and ordered another drink before turning to Tim again. “I’m afraid I can’t leave things like this, though. So here’s my plan: I pay for my drink and you pay for yours, until we know each other well enough for you to let me buy you one. How does that sound?”

Tim couldn’t stop noticing that Dick hadn’t moved back apart after ordering his drink. He had no idea of what was happening, but-

“Sounds good.”

-he was pretty happy with it.


End file.
